Torrington's Tara Lynch to ride in Philadelphia's famous Thanksgiving Day parade

Torrington >> Torrington seventh-grader Tara Lynch will appear as national princess in the "6 ABC Dunkin' Donuts Thanksgiving Day Parade" in Philadelphia on Thursday.

Tara, who is the reigning Junior Miss Litchfield County 2012, has been national princess for Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen Jaine Coann Lefebrve since June when Coann won the state title.

"I feel really good to be able to represent all of Connecticut," Tara said. "It's an honor to represent the state."

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As part of the overall Miss America and Miss America's Outstanding Teen program, each state can have a princess accompany their teen titleholder to their national competition in Orlando, Florida.

Because as the two contest winners became friends in 2010 when Jaine held the local title of Miss Litchfield County's Outstanding Teen and Tara was Jr. Miss Litchfield County, Tara immediately accepted her friend's wish to have her as her national princess.

The honored "national princess" entered into the pageant world after Tara won the title of Little Miss Litchfield County in 2009 as a third-grader. She retained the title in 2010 and moved up an age division in 2011.

Tara's pageant career stemmed from Lynch's mother suggesting to try out pageants in order to break out of her shell seeing as many of the activities in pageants pertain to public speaking.

"In that year, I grew up the most because I was able to grow in myself and talk (in front of people)," she said.

When Tara originally received the title of Junior Miss Litchfield County in 2011, she launched her own personal platform, "Run the World: Building Confidence and Character in Girls" to build self-esteem and confidence in girls her age.

"She realized there are girls her age that just didn't have the same self-esteem she had about themselves," said Colleen Lynch, Tara's mom.

Tara has made several appearances at local Girl Scout meetings and after school programs "to talk about why it is important for girls in fourth to eighth grades to realize they need to be the best they can be, whether it is through art, dance, writing, math or whatever brings them happiness," she said.

Her message to the young girls is that they should be confident because when they enter middle school peer pressure begins and should "accept yourself and be who you are and not anyone else."

The Junior Miss Litchfield County has aspirations of becoming Miss Connecticut's Outstanding Teen, Miss Connecticut and eventually Miss America. Her mentor is Brittany Decker, last year's Miss Connecticut.

Besides participating in pagaent-related events, Tara is a three-year member of the student service council at her school St. Anthony School in Winsted where she also competes as an award-winning Irish dancer at the Shamrock School of Dance and is a member of the SoccerPlus Elite U-12 premier travel soccer team.